While (NMP) Obama is running around the country giving campaign speech after speech, instead of providing leadership and honest discussion, far left Soros funded monkeys make an interesting discovery, which the NY Times was thrilled to repeat

Many states with the weakest gun laws have the worst rates of gun violence, ranking high on numerous indicators, like gun homicides and suicides, firearm deaths of children, and killings of law enforcement officers, according to a report to be issued Wednesday by the liberal Center for American Progress.

Alaska ranked first in overall gun deaths, the report found, with 20.28 deaths per 100,000 people in 2010 – more than twice the national average – followed by Louisiana and Montana, all states that prior analyses have judged to have weak gun laws. Eight of the states with the highest levels of gun violence were among the 25 with the weakest gun laws, the report found.

If you take a look at the map of the states at Think Progress, you’ll be shocked, shocked, I tell you, that quite a few “Blue” states with some of the most draconian gun laws are deemed “the best.” You know, the states that tend to feature the most gang activity, drive by’s, and mass shootings. And what of Chicago, which has extremely strict laws aimed at law abiding citizens? What of people using guns to protect themselves?

(American Power) But I clicked through anyway, and my first objection is that CAP doesn’t define “gun violence.” What kind of gun violence are we talking about? Is gun violence being committed by people who bought firearms legally? Or what? The piece doesn’t say. But it does spout a bunch of scholarly jargon about “regression,” “empirical evidence,” and so forth, so it sounds really awesome!

Good points

(Just One Minute) It will be interesting to peruse the study when it hits the intertubes. The lead tells us that low control states score high on “numerous” indicators, such as “gun homicides and suicides, firearm deaths of children, and killings of law enforcement officers”. Yet I think we will find states like Montana ranking high on just one factor. The suspense mounts!

Tom Maguire dug deep into the study and found some interesting things. Like, that Montana, despite being prominently featured in the Times’ article, isn’t even in the top 10. And notes that suicide by gun is heavily weighted, as are some other factors. Should suicide be included? No.

(NY Times link) Dr. Azrael, of Harvard, noted that the factors that were driving gun violence differed from state to state – in states like Montana and Idaho, for example, the rate of gun suicides greatly outstrips the rate of homicides committed with firearms.

What we do see from the study is that states with the strictest gun laws tend to have lots and lots of gun violence against others. I’d suggest that it’s not just the harsh laws against personal gun ownership, but also that these liberal states also are soft on criminals.

(Think Progress) The CAP report’s finding is yet another contribution to a growing body of empirical evidence that strong gun laws work.

And that is the point of the study, to take cherry picked and massaged data to increase restrictions on legal gun owners. Interestingly, these liberals never seem to call for stronger penalties on the actual criminals.